Sunday, April 9, 2006

I got this via email and cut and paste it into the post. All questions should go to the writer of the press release.

Traditional Values Coalition continues to use studies it acknowledged as wrong

April 8, 2005 –Recently, Traditional Values Coalition head Lou Sheldon gave a speech to Kingdom Builders Christian Center , a predominantly African-American church in Norcross, GA. During this speech, he remarked that “preachers don’t lie.” He also accused the gay community of exploiting the civil rights movement for its own purposes, claiming that they have “highjacked the freedom train to Selma.”

Lastly, Sheldon encouraged members of the congregation to buy his book, The Agenda, which speaks of a supposed gay conspiracy. However, there are questions, not only about some of sources in The Agenda but also about whether or not the Traditional Values Coalition has been citing work it acknowledged as incorrect.

In various parts in The Agenda, Sheldon cites work from Paul Cameron. Cameron is a researcher who was dismissed from the American Psychological Association in 1984 after it was discovered that he was misrepresenting the work of his colleagues to demonize the gay community.

Last year, when confronted by its usuage of Cameron’s work by the Boston Globe, the Traditional Values Coalition removed his work from its webpage. According to the Boston Globe, Traditional Values Coalition spokesperson Daniella Lopez said Cameron’s work was mistakenly placed on the organization’s webpage.

However, Sheldon has made no effort in removing Cameron’s work from The Agenda. In one chapter, Sheldon cites Cameron’s discredited studies on four occasions even mentioning Cameron by name. Copies of The Agenda, complete with Cameron’s citations are continuing to be sold even now.

Also, a quick look on the Traditional Values Coalition webpage brings up even more questions. Comparisons between passages in the TVC report Exposed: Homosexual Child Molesters and Cameron’s piece, Child Molestation and Homosexuality, show that they are oddly similar:

“In 1987, Dr. Stephen Rubin of Whitman College conducted a ten-state study of sex abuse cases involving school teachers. He studied 199 cases. Of those, 122 male teachers had molested girls, while 14 female teachers had molested boys. He also discovered that 59 homosexual male teachers had molested boys and female homosexual teachers had molested girls. In other words, 32 percent of those child molestation cases involved homosexuals. Nearly a third of these cases come from 1-2 percent of the population.” – TVC, Exposed: Homosexual Child Molesters

“Drs. Freund and Heasman of the Clark Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto reviewed two studies on child molesters and calculated that 34% and 32% of sex offenders were homosexual. In cases these doctors handled, 36% of the molesters were homosexual.” – TVC, Exposed: Homosexual Child Molesters

“Drs. Freund and Heasman of the Clark Institute of Psychiatry in Toronto reviewed two sizeable studies and calculated that 34% and 32% of the offenders against children were homosexual. In cases they had personally handled, homosexuals accounted for 36% of their 457 pedophiles –Paul Cameron, Child Molestation and Homosexuality

Readers of the study, Exposed: Homosexual Child Molesters are in fact encouraged at the end of the study to buy a copy of Sheldon’s The Agenda.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Sheldon and his organization does continue to use Cameron’s work,” said researcher Alvin McEwen. “ It would be par for the course for them.”
For over a year, McEwen has analyzed studies and reports published by religious conservative organizations. He said that these organizations, such as Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition, often engage in patterns of distortions designed to exploit the beliefs of people of faith.

“To knowingly repeat distortions isn’t very Christian,” said McEwen.” But what can you expect from groups that think ‘gay bowel syndrome’ is an actual medical condition? Someone should tell Sheldon that the freedom train to Selma is not paved with lies.

One Response to “Lou Sheldon proves that ‘preachers do lie’”

Your review of the case studies were quite interesting. I also question the way they handled the case studies because in part they asked about homosexuals having sex with boys ages 16 to 19 years of age and yet they did not study the same for heterosexuals. I believe that the heterosexual numbers would be quite a bit higher even given the population. Is there such a case study in comparison to that? Just questioning the studies and thank you for your article because I was doing research for a school project.